s, should still preserve their
language and customs, so near to your principal city, and yet with no more
affiliation than if they were on an island in the South Seas!"

"The reason of that," he replied, "is because they stick to their own
settlement; never see anything of the world except Halifax early in the
morning; never marry out of their own set; never read--I do not believe
one of them can read or write--and are in fact _so slow_, so destitute of
enterprise, so much behind the age"----

I could not avoid smiling. My companion observed it. "What are you
thinking about?" said he.

The truth is, I was thinking of Halifax, which was anything but a _fast_
place; but I simply observed:

"Your settlements here are somewhat novel to a stranger. That a mere
handful of men should be so near your city, and yet so isolated: that this
village of a few hundred only, should retain its customs and language,
intact, for generation after generation, within walking distance of
Halifax, seems to me unaccountable. But let me ask you," I continued,
"what is the moral condition of the Acadians?"

"As for that," said he, "I believe it stands pretty fair. I do not think
an Acadian would cheat, lie, or steal; I know that the women are virtuous,
and if I had a thousand pounds in my pocket I could sleep with confidence
in any of their houses, although all the doors were unlocked and everybody
in the village knew it."

"That," said I, "reminds one of the poem:

'Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows,
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of their owners;
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.'"

Poor exiles! You will never see the Gasperau and the shore of the Basin of
Minas, but if this very feeble life I have holds out, I hope to visit
Grandpre and the broad meadows that gave a name to the village.

One thing Longfellow has certainly omitted in "Evangeline"--the wild
flowers of Acadia. The roadside is all fringed and tasselled with white,
pink, and purple. The wild strawberries are in blossom, whitening the turf
all the way from Halifax to Chezzetcook. You see their starry settlements
thick in every bit of turf. These are the silver mines of poor Cuffee; he
has the monopoly of the berry trade. It is his only revenue. Then in the
swampy grounds there are long green needles in solitary groups, surmounted
with snowy tufts; and here and there, clusters of li